By JAMES WALLACE, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, June 7, 2001

In what could turn out to be the worst case of aircraft sabotage in Boeing's history, at least 10 of its 737 jets may have been deliberately damaged as they rolled down the assembly line at the Renton plant over the past month.

For now, the company will only say that it found "suspicious wire damage" in those next generation 737s. The damage was discovered on assembly-line jets last month, before any of the planes had been delivered to customers.

But a source familiar with the matter said electrical wiring was deliberately cut in at least some of the planes. Boeing refused to characterize what kind of wire damage was found.

The first wire damage was found on a 737 during routine testing on May 4, but Boeing did not realize until a couple weeks ago, after more planes had turned up with wire damage, that it had a much more serious problem on its hands.

"This is Boeing's plant and their investigation," said Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the FAA's regional office in Renton.

"We don't have the staffing to investigate...Our job is to make sure the planes are in compliance at the time of delivery."

Although the FBI has been notified, Boeing said it is conducting its own internal investigation for now.

"The overwhelming majority of our employees take great pride in what they do and in the high quality of the product they produce," said company spokeswoman Sandy Angers.

"If this (sabotage) turns out to be true, it is very upsetting."

It is not clear why any worker or workers would deliberately damage planes. There is no ongoing labor unrest at the Renton plant, though Boeing recently announced that it was moving 757 fuselage work from Renton to its factory in Wichita, Kan.

That move will affect about 500 of the Renton employees who work on the 757. Boeing has said it will offer those workers other jobs.

Boeing is also studying the possibility of consolidating its commercial airplane production by eventually moving the 737 and 757 assembly lines in Renton to Everett, where it builds the 747, 767 and 777 jets.

About 1,800 employees work in the 737 and 757 final assembly building in Renton.

"Machinist union members at Boeing have always and continue to take great pride in building the highest quality aircraft in the world," IAM District Lodge 751 President Mark Blondin said in a statement.

The wiring damage has so far been confined to the 737. Three assembly lines at the plant turn out 24 of the planes a month. That monthly production rate will be increased to a record 28 planes this summer.

The 10 planes with damaged wiring were all on assembly lines three and four. The other 737 line is being used to test a lean-manufacturing technique known as a continuously moving production line.

Workers first discovered wiring damage to one of the planes during what's called a functionality test on May 4. Another plane with wiring damage was found May 15 during a similar test.

"It was not obvious that this was intentional," Angers said. "It's not unheard of to find damaged wiring."

On May 24, however, Boeing found more planes with damaged wiring and suspicions were raised. Boeing launched a thorough internal investigation.

All 10 jets with suspicious wire damage were about midway through the assembly line. But the damage involved different systems on each plane.

After they leave the Renton plant the jets are rolled out to the flight line for additional testing before being flown to the delivery center at Boeing Field. There, they undergo more testing before being handed over to the customer.

"There is no way we could ever deliver a plane with wire damage because of the redundancy testing that is done," Angers said.

"That redundancy testing is performed on all wiring through the production process."

It is a federal crime to deliberately damage an airplane, and Boeing issued a statement on its Web site saying it will take "swift, immediate action" if it is determined that the incidents of wire damage were intentional.

Sabotage at Boeing is rare.

In early 1999, Boeing inspectors at the Renton plant found several wires in a wire bundle for a next generation 737 had been intentionally cut. The wire bundle had not yet been installed on a plane.

Whoever cut the wires was never caught.

Another case of 737 sabotage occurred in March 1990 when Boeing quality control inspectors found more than 50 cut wires on one a jet in production. In that case, some of the wires in the plane had been cut and then hidden inside bundles of cables that run through the plane, making the damage hard to spot. No one was ever arrested.